Mr. Mercedes (Unnamed Trilogy #1)(88)
Holly looks at him out of her naked face. She doesn’t have a damn thing going for her, Hodges thinks, not a single scrap of wit, not a single wile. He will come to regret this misperception, but for now he finds himself once more musing on Olivia Trelawney. How the press treated her and how the cops treated her. Including him.
“Do you promise it’ll be closed?”
“Yes.”
“Double promise?”
“Pinky swear, if you want.” Then, still thinking of Olivia and the computer-poison Mr. Mercedes fed her: “Are you taking your medication, Holly?”
Her eyes widen. “How do you know I take Lexapro? Did she tell you?”
“Nobody told me. Nobody had to. I used to be a detective.” He tightens the arm around her shoulders a little and gives her a small, friendly shake. “Now answer my question.”
“It’s in my purse. I haven’t taken it today, because . . .” She gives a small, shrill giggle. “Because it makes me have to pee.”
“If I get a glass of water, will you take it now?”
“Yes. For you.” Again that naked stare, the look of a small child sizing up an adult. “I like you. You’re a good guy. Janey’s lucky. I’ve never been lucky in my life. I’ve never even had a boyfriend.”
“I’ll get you some water,” Hodges says, and stands up. At the corner of the building, he looks back. She’s trying to light another cigarette, but it’s hard going because the shakes are back. She’s holding her disposable Bic in both hands, like a shooter on the police gun range.
Inside, Janey asks where he’s been. He tells her, and asks if the coffin can be closed at the memorial service the following day. “I think it’s the only way you’ll get her inside,” he says.
Janey looks at her aunt, now at the center of a group of elderly women, all of them talking animatedly. “That bitch hasn’t even noticed Holly’s not in here,” she says. “You know what, I just decided the coffin’s not even going to be here tomorrow. I’ll have the funeral director stash it in the back, and if Auntie C doesn’t like it, she can go spit. Tell Holly that, okay?”
The discreetly hovering funeral director shows Hodges into the next room, where drinks and snacks have been arranged. He gets a bottle of Dasani water and takes it out to the parking lot. He passes on Janey’s message and sits with Holly until she takes one of her little white happy-caps. When it’s down, she smiles at him. “I really do like you.”
And, using that splendid, police-trained capacity for telling the convincing lie, Hodges replies warmly, “I like you too, Holly.”
12
The Midwest Culture and Arts Complex, aka the MAC, is called “the Louvre of the Midwest” by the newspaper and the local Chamber of Commerce (the residents of this midwestern city call it “the Loovah”). The facility covers six acres of prime downtown real estate and is dominated by a circular building that looks to Brady like the giant UFO that shows up at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This is Mingo Auditorium.
He wanders around back to the loading area, which is as busy as an anthill on a summer day. Trucks bustle to and fro, and workers are unloading all sorts of stuff, including—weird but true—what looks like sections of a Ferris wheel. There are also flats (he thinks that’s what they’re called) showing a starry night sky and a white sand beach with couples walking hand-in-hand at the edge of the water. The workers, he notes, are all wearing ID badges around their necks or clipped to their shirts. Not good.
There’s a security booth guarding the entrance to the loading area, and that’s not good, either, but Brady wanders over anyway, thinking No risk, no reward. There are two guards. One is inside, noshing a bagel as he monitors half a dozen video screens. The other steps out to intercept Brady. He’s wearing sunglasses. Brady can see himself reflected in the lenses, with a big old gosh-this-is-interesting smile on his face.
“Help you, sir?”
“I was just wondering what’s going on,” Brady says. He points. “That looks like a Ferris wheel!”
“Big concert here Thursday night,” the guard says. “The band’s flogging their new album. Kisses on the Midway, I think it’s called.”
“Boy, they really go all out, don’t they?” Brady marvels.
The guard snorts. “The less they can sing, the bigger the set. You know what? When we had Tony Bennett here last September, it was just him. Didn’t even have a band. The City Symphony backed him up. That was a show. No screaming kids. Actual music. What a concept, huh?”
“I don’t suppose I could go over for a peek. Maybe snap a picture with my cell phone?”
“Nope.” The guard is looking him over too closely. Brady doesn’t like that. “In fact, you’re not supposed to be here at all. So . . .”
“Gotcha, gotcha,” Brady says, widening his smile. Time to go. There’s nothing here for him, anyway; if they have two guys on duty now, there’s apt to be half a dozen on Thursday night. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”
“No problem.”
Brady gives him a thumbs-up. The security goon returns it, but stands in the doorway of the security booth, watching him walk away.
He strolls along the edge of a vast and nearly empty parking lot that will be filled to capacity on the night of the ’Round Here show. His smile is gone. He’s musing on the numbf*ck ragheads who ran a pair of jetliners into the World Trade Center nine years before. He thinks (without the slightest trace of irony), They spoiled it for the rest of us.